"Welcome!"
At the trading post, I learned the name of a restaurant that made good food, the approximate prices of supplies needed for sailing, and where to buy the cleaning tools and weapons Salkenia and Perero had requested. I paid one silver coin for the information, but I had bought time with money, so I did not find it particularly wasteful.
"I'll have grilled herring and stew."
I immediately found a restaurant and ordered the menu items recommended by the trading post. The Maritime League might have been pursuing me, but I still had to eat to live. It was fairly expensive because fish was the ingredient, but not so expensive that I could not pay.
‘In Semeln, I had only tried sardines because I was saving money.’
Picking out the bones felt awkward, but the grilled herring was far more delicious than I had expected. Perhaps it was seasoned with herbs, because a subtle fragrance had soaked into it, and the combination of the moderately oily, crisp skin and moist flesh was superb.
"Mmm!"
The stew was quite good as well. They say a familiar taste is frightening. The vegetables, slow-cooked until tender, crumbled the moment they touched my teeth and went easily down my throat. Only moments ago I had been weak, but simply eating warm food filled my body with energy.
"Whew."
With my stomach full, I considered what I should do next. There was much to buy, but even if I bought it now, I could not call on the skeleton sailors, so carrying it to the ship would be a problem. I also could not judge how much food I should buy.
‘The skeleton sailors do not need food or water, so I will not need a great deal.’
If I hired sailors in Lindana, the amount I had to buy would change. Considering that food could spoil, it would be better to buy it just before departing, so I decided to put off purchasing supplies for now. In truth, I had come to Lindana for a different purpose.
‘Right. I should check first.’
The nautical chart that Perero had worn as a headscarf. I decided to prioritize checking the point marked on it. It was on the outskirts of Lindana, and it seemed I would have to pass through the cultivated fields and reach the forest beyond.
‘There must be something there, right?’
Because the nautical chart was old, there was no guarantee that anything remained at the marked point, but there was nothing to lose by looking.
***
The grass beneath my feet curled inward and hunched up, then raised its head as though watching me once I took my foot away. I was crossing a pathless forest.
‘Where in the world is it?’
The marked point was harder to find than I had expected. I had thought finding my way would be easy on land, but nothing on the old nautical chart matched. At sea there were no landmarks; in the forest, there were too many.
‘I have to go around to the right using a large tree as my marker, but it is not as though there are only one or two large trees!’
The green-brown forest was full of things that could have been the landmarks marked on the nautical chart. When this chart was made, there might have been only one large tree. But now, so many trees had grown with time that it was difficult to distinguish the tree drawn on the chart.
‘I want to find it before night falls.’
Dense broadleaf trees divided sky and earth, letting little sunlight in. Still, thanks to the occasional shafts of light pouring through the leaves, I could dimly tell that the sun had not yet set.
"Hup."
I hopped over a tree root protruding from the earth. If no light had leaked through the gap in the leaves, I might have caught my foot and fallen.
‘It is quiet.’
For the first time, I realized that a forest was such a secretive place. Instead of the sound of waves constantly ringing in my ears, there was only the faint rustle of leaves that came now and then like whispers. Unlike the open sea, where everything lay exposed, the forest thick with trees and brush seemed closed, as though it hid secrets.
Hiss.
After walking for some time, I caught a familiar smell. The distinctive salt scent of the sea drifted between the smell of grass and flowers.
‘The smell of the sea?’
Of course, this was a forest not far from Lindana. If the wind had carried the scent of the sea, it would have been possible. But there was no wind now. The leaves, silent and still in their places, seemed to prove it.
‘Is it around here?’
I was circling an area I thought might be the point marked on the nautical chart. Since this was a nautical chart, I could look for a connection to the sea. In other words, the faint smell of the sea I sensed now could also be a clue.
‘There are only stones.’
There were an unusual number of large rocks. As I approached one without thinking, I found something strange: gray-white moss caught beneath the rock.
‘This moss.’
Forest moss did not have this color. I had seen this sort of pale moss again and again in the ship graveyard. The salt-laden moss seeped out from the crack in the large rock.
‘This is it!’
A cool wind blew from the crack. That meant there was a space beyond it. And the wind clearly carried an afterscent of the sea.
‘This is the mark.’
Looking closely, I found a mark on the rock as though someone had carved it. Two lines crossing diagonally, the same mark as on the nautical chart.
‘It does not look as though sunlight can reach inside.’
To look into the rock crack filled with deep darkness, I lit a lantern. The ship graveyard had been so dark that I had bought it to clean until evening. I pushed the lantern's flame into the crack.
Whoosh.
But the light did not last long. Had the wind leaking from inside extinguished it? The light that entered the darkness vanished. When I pulled out the lantern to relight it, I could not hide my confusion.
"Huh?"
The lantern was still burning. It was strange. Had the flame briefly died and lit again? I pushed the lantern into the darkness again.
"What?"
The lantern's light vanished once more. Judging by the faint heat against my hand, the flame was still burning. Only the light that should have spread as long as the flame burned had been swallowed by the darkness and vanished.
"What is this?"
I gathered branches, dried moss, and dry leaves, then used the lantern's flame to build a larger fire. Then I threw it into the crack in the rock.
Crackle.
The result did not change. Whether the fire was small or large, its light vanished the moment it touched the darkness. Judging by the sound of wood burning and the thickly rising smoke, the fire was still burning. It had merely lost its light.
‘What about light that is not fire?’
I picked up a long branch and pushed aside the leaves covering the sky. The light that poured through the opening in the canopy reached the crack in the rock, but it did not illuminate beyond that darkness.
‘Normally, light drives darkness away. Here, it is the other way around.’
I suddenly realized that the smell of the sea came from within. If there was a space inside connected to the sea, I could infer the cause of this phenomenon.
‘This is an Unknown!’
The Unknown. A word that explained the inexplicable things that happened at sea.
‘It is fascinating.’
Even now, my common sense was being casually denied. The problem was that I had to explore inside. I had thought there might be something special at the point marked on the nautical chart, but I had never imagined it would point to a space filled with the Unknown.
‘They say entering the Unknown is no different from jumping into a sea monster's mouth.’
It was something the innkeeper in Semeln said from time to time. If you wanted to put out to sea, you had to be more wary of the Unknown than anything else. Whenever something you could not understand happened, he emphasized again and again that turning the bow in the opposite direction and fleeing far away at once was the only way to survive. As he spoke, he would show the leg he had lost while exploring the Unknown.
‘What do I do?’
It was all well and good that I had found the marked point, but now I had no way to know what was inside. If I got lost in there, I was certain to die without any way to move.
***
I returned to Salkenia. The skeleton sailors, holding the cleaning tools I had bought on the way back, were cleaning the outer hull under Perero's command.
‘Do they really have to clean like that?’
Hanging from ropes, the skeleton sailors diligently scraped the dried Drowncatcher slime from the ship's surface. It was peaceful yet grotesque, because the skeleton sailors had ropes looped around their necks.
Clatter.
Perero explained that, because he would not die even if his neck were constricted, it was easier to keep his balance this way than to tie the rope around his body.
"By the way, I thought the skeleton sailors could not leave the ship?"
[They can leave within a certain range centered on Salkenia. However, if they stray too far, they will regress into ordinary skeletons.]
"How far?"
[If the ships are brought close together, they can reach the deck of another ship.]
In other words, they could move about as far as one ship's length from Salkenia. Conversely, they could not go beyond that.
‘That is good. I will not have to carry all the cargo alone.’
I would have to bring it to the beach myself, but it seemed I could have the skeleton sailors carry the cargo once it was brought onto the ship.
"Right. I checked the marked point."
I told Salkenia that the marked point was a crack in the rocks, and that darkness which swallowed light filled it.
[That is troublesome.]
"I can think of a way to light the inside somehow."
[Then should you not use that method?]
"You are the one who holds that method, not me."
Salkenia tilted her head. More precisely, it would be right to say that her hat and veil tilted to the side. Because she had no head, each movement like that gave me a strange feeling.
[Me?]
"Yes. Can you leave the ship?"
[Salkenia is the ship.]
"Not the ship. I mean the Salkenia standing before me right now."
[The two are no different from one, but if you mean separating them, it is not impossible.]
"Really? How far can you go?"
After thinking deeply about my question, Salkenia answered.
[If I possess the captain, I believe I can move.]
"Possess me? What does that mean?"
[Yes. Would you turn around?]
I obediently turned around as Salkenia said. Soon, something cool wrapped around my neck. Looking down, I saw that Salkenia had her arms around my neck.
"Oh. It is cool."
I felt neither her touch nor any weight. It was similar to the feeling of cool night air against me. Salkenia's voice sounded beside my ear.
[Shall we get down?]
I got down from the ship and set foot on the beach. Salkenia was still behind me, her arms around my neck. But she was not standing on the ground. The hem of her dress was clearly floating in the air. A ghost was a ghost after all.
"You cannot stand on land?"
[Because Salkenia is a ship, I cannot set foot on land like the skeleton sailors.]
"You cannot float around on your own, either?"
[Can a ship sail on its own?]
"Can you possess the skeleton sailors or another person?"
[It is impossible.]
What mattered, in any case, was that I could move Salkenia. With this, I could explore the Unknown.
[However, Captain, accompanying you does not mean Salkenia can dispel the darkness.]
"Maybe not, but it is worth trying."
[What do you intend to do?]
"The things that shine even in the deepest darkness are the moon and stars."